For those scholars and journalists covering religious politicking in 2008, John McCain is no muse, no inspired source of ideas and angles, no solvent of writer's block.
He certainly captured our interest when he referred to America as a “Christian Nation” back in the fall. He titillated us when he proclaimed himself to be a Baptist, not an Episcopalian. “Appreciative” is the word I would use to describe how many of us felt when he sought out and subsequently disavowed Reverends Hagee and Parsley.
But other than that, his run for the presidency has been dry toast on a cloudy day for Faith and Values pundits.
As for Barack Obama, well there’s a candidate who generates storylines! Just a few days ago he appeared in prime-time to address a magazine cover which, with a clin d’œil (THAT MEANS “A WINK OF THE EYE” FOR YOU NASCAR-FUME-ADDLED RUBES WHO DON'T UNDERSTAND FRENCH, LET ALONE THE NEW YORKER’S FINELY TUNED SENSE OF IRONY), depicted the Obamas, variously, as: 1) radical Islamists, 2) Black Power militants, 3) Supporters of Osama Bin Laden, and, 4) desecrators of Old Glory.
In light of the magazine’s unsubtle (and, in my view, unbearable) boosterism for Senator Obama, Sally Quinn and I were discussing if there exists something called “Unconscious Obama Loathing Syndrome” in Liberal America. U.O.L.S--when you think about the Senator from Illinois, and the reactions he elicits, you come up with spectacular, off-the-wall, stuff like that all the time.
Stuff like that doesn’t come up too much with the presumptive GOP nominee. Let’s turn the tables. Does McCain induce comparable unconscious loathing among Conservatives? Does he permit political analysts to go “down there,” to probe the dark nether regions of the human psyche? Of course not. The hatred for McCain among Conservatives had all the misdirection and nuance of a Rush Limbaugh rant on feminism, or on gay marriage, or on John McCain.
Put simply the faith-based storylines emerging from the McCain camp rarely inspire opinion makers. Take this past week as an example. While half the nation’s punditry scrummed over a cartoon, there were some plausible alternative subjects to pursue, though few did so:
***A minor flare-up occurred when a liberal group, Catholics United, identified a right-wing co-religionist with a checkered past serving as a religious advisor for McCain.
***The McCain people must have welcomed with all the joy reserved for the onset septicemia the appearance of yet another article discussing McCain’s difficulties with Evangelicals.
***McCain's comments concerning gay adoption to The New York Times created some confusion and controversy. Initially opposed to such adoptions (thus appeasing certain types of Evangelicals) the campaign later sort of retracted (thus undoing the aforementioned appeasement).
None of these stories gained much traction this week, especially the important one about gay adoption. But man did that image of Michelle Obama's AK-47 set hearts aflutter!
Things that interest the punditry, however, might not interest lots of other Americans. And vice versa. Obama may have a double-digit lead over McCain in the field of media fascination. But in the field of voter preference the polls are tightening of late. This is a state of affairs which understandably worries Democrats. They don’t understand why their man isn’t enjoying a “Dukakis July.”
It all raises the possibility that we are missing something. Is the Senator from Arizona quietly amassing God Votes on the sly? I don’t have any reason at present to think this is the case. But if he is, then our inability to see that would be the season's most spectacular story of all, worthy of being lampooned in a cartoon or perhaps a work of claymation.
Jacques Berlinerblau is the Rabbi Harold White Chair in Jewish Civilization in Georgetown's Walsh School of Foreign Service and senior advisor to the Center for Jewish Civilization, where he was director from 2006 to June 2020. Berlinerblau has published on a wide variety of issues ranging from the sociology of heresy and modern Jewish intellectuals to African-American and Jewish-American relations.
